The history of Professor Quatermass in all his many incarnations across television, cinema, books and stage is a particular love of mine, so I would be a cheerleader for this new podcast series, even if I wasn’t one of it many contributors.
It’s the brainchild of cult tv enthusiast, Jon Dear and Howard Ingham, and over the next few months will cover every serial, film, and spin-off, together with a couple of diversions into media which is closely connected to the development of Quatermass.
Episode one is out now, in which Jon is joined by writer, comedian and television historian Toby Hadoke to talk about the origins and significance of BBC’s The Quatermass Experiment, and analyse the first episode “Contact has been established”. The remainder of this now largely lost serial will be covered by them in the next segment.
It’s an excellent debut. Ingham writes a fascinating introduction in which he points out that in many ways, watching Experiment is to witness not so much a show as the ghost of a television programme. The subsequent conversation between Dear and Hadoke is full of fascinating information that I didn’t know about the making of the serial. Hadoke is the ideal guest to start off this series, since he has been corresponding and interviewing as many people behind the scenes of the Quatermass serials as he could since he was teenager. Since few of the cast and crew involved are still with us, this has resulted in a unique archive of memories. He has also spent hours in the BBC archives reviewing the paperwork and uncovering all kinds of incidental gems, such as the cat being recast because the original was “too savage”.
You can listen to it at Jon’s blog Views from a Hill or with the Podbean app.
The Phantom Frame 